There is an old story, told by the French philosopher Albert Camus, about a man named Sisyphus. You may have heard of him if you are a book lover.
According to the myth, Sisyphus had committed many wrongs against the gods, and for his punishment, he was sentenced to a lifetime of constant push. This was never a normal push-up, the one you know.
He was to push a big stone up a mountain. But every time he reached the top, the stone would roll all the way back down, and he would have to begin again, it was everyday. This was his entire life. Up and down. Again and again, all his life. A man caught in a never-ending struggle with no end, no win and no escape strategy. It is very sad to imagine him doing this but Camus tells us something that almost sounds like a big joke, that we must imagine Sisyphus happy.
This actually makes no sense. How can someone be happy when everything they do fails in the end? How can you find joy in a life where every dream you climb toward slips out of your hands? How do you smile when the weight you carry never gets lighter, and there is no moment when you get to rest?
Bu it seems, Camus was looking at a different aspect of life, especially the idea that maybe happiness is not something that waits for us at the finish line. Maybe happiness is not what happens when everything finally goes right. Maybe, just maybe, happiness is found in the push itself. In pain. In the act of standing up again and again, even when you know the stone will fall.
And in that way, Sisyphus becomes a mirror to humanity because aren’t we all pushing something? Some of us are pushing through long days in hospital beds, hoping the next treatment works. Others are pushing through pain, through the loss of someone they loved and will never see again. Some are the first in their families to graduate in college and are trying everything to be the first to fight poverty.
Many are fighting silent battles and some of us, most of us, are just pushing through life, looking for something we can’t name. Maybe it is peace. Maybe it is purpose. Maybe it is just a little joy that doesn’t disappear so quickly.
We have been told a lie since we were children, that life is a journey to happiness, and if we just make the right choices, we will get there one day. Get good grades, marry the right person, land a good job, dream big, and life will reward you. Sit over a dinner table with Elon Musk or fall in love with Rihanna. But that is not how it works.
Life is not a straight line with a perfect ending. It is a mountain with a stone that keeps slipping and happiness is not a destination. It is not a perfect moment waiting for us in the future. It is not something we arrive at. It is something we find in the process, in pieces, in stops. It is here, or not at all.
But the most painful part is that many of us keep postponing our joy. We say, “I will be happy when I graduate,” “I will enjoy myself when I make enough money,” “I will rest when I have achieved something,” “I will laugh again when things get better.” But things don’t always get better. Sometimes what you are waiting for doesn’t come. Sometimes the person you are waiting to forgive or hear from never returns and while we wait for some grand arrivals, life is passing by slowly, to the finishing end.
The moments that could have given us joy or a simple smile are slipping away and we will sadly never get them back. We are letting them go because we believe they don’t count yet but they are gone, forever.
The truth is, you don’t have to earn every moment of joy. You are allowed to be happy, even if your life is not perfect, even if you are still struggling, even if you are still waiting. Even if the stone keeps rolling back down. You can still laugh. You can still love. You can still breathe in the morning air and drink your tea slowly and call someone you care about. You can still cry and let that be a kind of healing. You can still tell someone they matter. You can still matter.
Sisyphus was supposed to be a man broken by his punishment. But Camus saw him differently. He saw him as a man who made peace with the mountain. Who stopped asking when it would end. Who stopped looking at the top. Who simply looked at the stone, felt its weight, and decided, I will push anyway, and in that decision, he became stronger. He became free.
Maybe we can too, even when the world is too heavy to push through. Maybe we don’t need the mountain to level or the stone to disappear. Maybe we just need to stop postponing the little joys we are already allowed to have because life is full of pain but it is also full of beautiful things too. You just need to see, even the most little things to be grateful for, like a good health and a loving family.
You have to let them in. You have to stop waiting for everything to be right before you let yourself feel good because waiting too long for joy is how we miss it and once it is gone, you can’t always get it back.
So don’t delay your little joy. Don’t wait for permission. Don’t wait for someday. Let it come to you now, in whatever shape it takes. Let it be enough. Let it find you while you are still pushing, while your hands still hurt from the climb, while your heart is still tired. Let it wrap around you and remind you that you are still human, still breathing, still going to make it.
Because maybe happiness is not a reward. Maybe It is a rebellion, a refusal to let life crush your spirit. A choice to smile, even when tears are still drying on your face, a decision to give the struggle or the push a human face because, in the end, the things we wait don’t really find their way home. Peace.